


Once and Future Kisses

by mautadite



Category: Minority Report (TV 2015)
Genre: Case Fic, F/F, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 00:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17152247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: Vega and Akeela appear in Dash’s latest vision. The good news is, neither of them are about to die, or become murderers.That’s probably the only good news. Right?





	Once and Future Kisses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lurrel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurrel/gifts).



> I binge-watched this show after seeing gifs of these ladies in your letter and thinking ‘dang they’re cute’. No regrets!
> 
> Please enjoy. :)

**-02:40:09**

_Don’t overthink it_ , Akeela tries telling herself, swallowing. Her throat feels like it’s been wallpapered with gravel. Even though it very much doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you _can_ overthink. There’s probably a precise amount of thinking allocated to situations like this, and Akeela feels like she’s still got a bit left to go. _I’m having a good hair day; looks like that new conditioner is a winner. Does my butt always look like that though? Does_ her _butt always look like that? Damn, Vega’s got a nice—_

“You’re both wearing the same clothes that you’re wearing right now,” Dash puts in helpfully, and Akeela tears her eyes away from the screen, straightening up like spaghetti going back in time.

“Yes, I’ve realised,” Vega growls quietly, stalking back and forth on the opposite side of the interface. She hasn’t really looked at Akeela yet, and Akeela’s been doing a pretty spectacular job of not looking at her either. “So it happens soon. In less than three hours. God. I knew you warned me about the hard ones, but this is…”

 _Weird_ , Akeela fills in for her, mentally. Dash has gotten them before, but this is a first for both Akeela and Vega. A vision with no apparent victim, no apparent killer, no apparent crime, just…

This.

Vega exhales hard, and her bangs shift.

“I don’t know. Try getting Arthur on the phone again.”

Golden retriever-esque, Dash taps on his wrist-mobile. Feeling the magnet friction between Vega’s shifting eyes and her own, and not knowing what to do with it, Akeela leans further over the interface. She zooms to another part of the recording, trying to look for anything that could help her pinpoint an exact location. It takes place indoors, in front of a window, but the blinds are drawn, the outer world is barely visible, and the boxes in the room bear no stamp, logo, sign… nothing. 

So far all they’ve been able to gauge is that it happens in some kind of commercial building, possibly on a higher floor. The time, she’d gotten from a cleverly enhanced close-up on Vega’s eyes; a clock on the opposite wall had been reflected in them.

 _Really nice eyes_ , she begins to muse, shoulders sinking, but then catches herself. 

No overthinking. Right.

*

**-02:30:33**

“Strangest pre-vision I’ve ever had,” was how Dash had described it at first. And then he had laughed awkwardly, eyes shifting between them, adding, “and not just because, you know.” He’s sure of a few things: neither Akeela nor Vega are victims or perpetrators, and a murder _does_ take place, despite no obvious evidence to suggest it. The vision had had none of the horror, none of the fear that he’s become used to after years of precognition. But he knows death, knows how to sense and scent it, and so here’s Akeela, entering stage right, doing the work she does best.

 _With an admittedly huge twist_ , she thinks, staring at the pre-vision on the screen.

What had looked like a candy wrapper on the floor next to their feet turns out to be a promotional flyer. Within minutes she’s got the closest thing they have to a clue: Century Stylez, a thirties style clothing store that caters to pretty niche tastes. Everything from butterfly sleeves to jewel-encrusted gloves to leopard print skinny jeans (2034 had been a _weird_ year) to nano-painted accessories designed to dupe recognition software. They claim to “effortlessly straddle the space between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from 1930 and going beyond”. 

From the face Vega makes, it’s clear that her music is the only thing she likes vintage.

“Okay, crimes against god and fashion aside, this is good.” She’s come round to Akeela’s side of the table, palms resting on the sides, peering down at the images. For a moment, it’s just like normal. Standing side by side, working a case, putting their heads together… until they share a skittering glance and they each inch unsubtly away. Vega clears her throat. “You said they’ve got four locations in the city? Now we’ve just got to narrow it down.”

“Already on it. I’m sure there’s something else I could pick up.”

Very sure. Akeela’s damned good at what she does. It’s just that _finding_ will require _looking_ , and she feels like if she looks at Dash’s pre-vision one more time she’ll spontaneously combust. Nevertheless, she starts it up again, from the top, in slow motion. Tries not to pay attention to extraneous details: a hand trailing across a hip, a soft gasp, a bitten lip before the first contact is made.

After a moment, Vega moves back in.

“Listen,” she says, and Akeela’s fingers trip over the holo-keypad in a move so amateur it belongs in a teen movie. Mercifully, Vega doesn’t notice, or pretends she doesn’t. “Listen, this doesn’t need to be weird.”

“Weird? Noooo. Why would it be?” Akeela hears herself saying it, and winces. Why is her tongue suddenly plated with lead?

Vega sighs. “I just mean…”

But what she means will have to wait for later, because Dash pokes his head rounds the corner and waves at Vega.

“Come on, you’ve got to hear this!”

Back to business; shoulders squared, eyes hard, limbs tense, all in the space of a second. Only the soft, gentle curve of her mouth betrays that she might have been about to say… something.

The something is gone. In its place comes, “Gimme a minute,” and then she’s stalking out of the room after Dash, hips swaying like a clock’s pendulum.

Watching her go, Akeela bites her lip.

*

**-02:14:55**

By the time Vega and Dash get back, she’s got all four addresses for Century Stylez, and teams have been sent out. She’s also been looking through all available photos and videos, trying to find anything that would help match locales, but so far she’s turned up squat. Dash’s view of the purported crime is frustratingly spare, and the scant furnishings of the room they’re in don’t help either. She scours the images with a vague sense of futility; all they have is the flyer, which doesn’t say much. This might not even happen in one of the stores at all, but it’s all they have to go on.

“Anything good?” she says when they walk in, not looking up from her task.

“Sort of?” Dash rubs his hair. “Still no word from Arthur, but I’ve been talking to Agatha. I don’t know if I can explain it as well as she did but… whenever there’s no deep feeling involved in the murder, no passion, no hate, no love, our minds might just…” He waves his arms, searching for the right word. “…latch on to the nearest source of intense feeling or emotion. As like… a focal point. I would have still seen something pertaining to the murder, just… not a lot of it.”

Akeela nods dumbly. Her mind is still snagged on something he said a couple sentences back, like a chipped fingernail caught in a piece of fabric. _Intense emotion._ Seems appropriate.

“So… a hit?” Vega, as ever, straight to the point. “A hired gun? Some kind of contract killing?”

“Seems likely,” Dash says, hands shoved into his pockets.

“Wouldn’t you have gotten a little more advanced notice for something like that?” Akeela wonders. “I mean, a hit takes a little planning.”

“Usually? But it’s not a science. And hey, maybe the contract needs to be filled within a couple hours of getting it.”

“Anything is possible,” Vega says, coming round to Akeela’s side once again. And once again, it’s frighteningly familiar, for them to stand so close, glance up and meet each other’s eyes, brush shoulders and fingers. Only now, there’s this thing between them, a thing that Akeela has felt for years, and to see it made corporeal on a mundane Tuesday at work because of their good friend the murder-whisperer… it’s almost appalling.

“The advance teams have been sent out, right?” Vega is saying. Akeela gives a thumbs-up. “Good. Now we just have to concentrate on—”

“The where.”

Amidst Blake’s admittedly and obnoxiously vast skillset, is the dubiously useful know-how in making an entrance. He’s buttoning his suit as he walks in, and must have timed himself perfectly in order to cut Vega off and finish her sentence. She gifts him with a mild glare as a reward, and he looks as if he’d like nothing better than to get another. Akeela would be jealous, but part of what makes Blake so annoying is that he’s got the charm to go along with it.

“No need to stop working,” he says after he’s made sure that the door is closed behind him. He leans against it, legs crossed at the ankles. “I just came to verify what I heard from Dash here.” 

Akeela glances at Dash, sees him mouth ‘You told me to keep him abreast!’ with a shrug at Vega. 

Blake continues, pointing at each of them slowly as he mentions them. 

“So let’s get this straight. _You_ saw another murder that’s supposed to happen today, except you didn’t actually _see_ a murder this time, but what you _did_ see was these two—” Double fingers for emphasis. “—making out in some building, and that’s the entirety of what we have to go on.”

A little tingle runs down Akeela’s spine, and she has to suppress the bizarre urge to giggle. Dash, Wally, Vega, Akeela: none of them have actually said those words up to this point. But that’s what she and Vega are doing, in that version of the future that Dash had seen. Making out. Neck-cupping, hip-touching, so close there’s no room for Jesus or any of his friends, making out. 

And somewhere close by, somewhere adjacent, a murder is about to take place.

Vega folds her arms. She looks like she’d be tapping her foot, if that was something that people did outside of television.

“Got it in one Blake. Congrats. Did you need something else?”

A slow smile. Cheshire cat who got the cream, the canary, and came back for seconds. He looks from Vega to Akeela, lightning quick.

“Wow. Well—”

It’s Vega’s turn to interrupt now, stepping forward to hold up a palm in his face.

“Stop. Take whatever you’re about to say, bottle it, and market it as a woman repelling spray. You’ll make a killing.”

Blake bursts out laughing, palms up in surrender.

“It was gonna be a joke!”

Vega cocks her head in mock confusion. “A joke? But you’re already wearing that tie.”

Akeela snickers loudly, and she hears Dash trying to cover up his own laugh. Blake himself is still chuckling.

“You’re in fine form today, detective. Remember to take that quick wit into the field.” He pushes himself off the door, nods at each of them in turn. Another one of his skills: going from teasing to serious in zero-point-zilch seconds. “Be careful, and get it done.”

*

**-01:59:01**

Vega’s headed out the door to join the closest team for a sweep when Arthur finally gets back to Dash with a piece of information that Akeela can actually use: a name. Indar Bhim. He’s unsure of whether it’s the victim or murderer, but it’s a start; a piece of investigative meat Akeela can sink her teeth into. Vest already strapped on, Vega joins them back at the interface. 

For the third time that afternoon, she gets distressingly, distractingly close, and Akeela can’t concentrate on the details of Bhim’s life that she’s spilling out across the screen. As if getting a cue from elsewhere, Dash mumbles something about the bathroom, and leaves. 

Akeela takes her fingers off of the holo-keypad. Looks up into the eyes of her partner. Co-worker. Friend.

 _Really_ unfairly pretty brown eyes.

“Look…” Vega begins. Akeela wonders if she’s about to get let down gently. She’s been wondering for years what number on Kinsey’s scale Vega calls home. A couple years ago when gaydars had been a thing (small devices worn as bracelets that would give you readouts of a person’s heart-rate, pulse, frontal lobe activity and more when a member of the same sex was near) she had tipsily contemplated wearing one to work. Sunlight and sobriety had been the thankful death of that idea.

She doesn’t think she needs one anyway. ‘Futch’ as a term hasn’t been in use for decades, but leather-jacketed, pant-suited Vega could reclaim it any day of the week. (And, more shallowly, Akeela thinks Vega would look great in pink, purple and blue.) But the thing she doesn’t know, and has never had the courage to try to find out, is if even a sliver of the attraction she’s always felt is returned.

She realises that neither of them have spoken since Vega’s last word, and all these thoughts have been unspooling while they gaze into each other’s eyes. Distractingly near. They look away at the same time, and Akeela coughs. What was that about not overthinking things?

“Look,” Vega tries again. “I don’t want this to make things awkward or weird between us.”

“Weird? Noooo…” Akeela begins to say again, but Vega shoves her gently with a shoulder, and she barks out a short laugh. Vega smiles alongside her. Vega’s smiles are an art form, a different style of facial hacking as compared to hers. It seems to make her a different person.

“I’m serious. In this line of work, sort of Pre-crime, but not really, we’re changing the future. On the good days, anyway. If we’re smart and fast and lucky, with great techs on our side, we can change the future, save a life.”

Akeela grins at the flattery, but it’s weak. She can see where this is going.

“So I mean… the future where we’re standing in front of some window locking lips without a care in the world… that’s gone. Unless our next two hours suddenly free up,” she jokes. “I suppose it had to be like that. Us being who we are, close to Dash, with access to his visions... that future was always going to change, as soon as we saw it.” Hesitantly, she reaches out and gives Akeela’s elbow a faint squeeze. “And that’s okay.”

Akeela knows what Vega is doing, of course. Creating an out for herself, and pointing the way to Akeela too. 

Akeela doesn’t _want_ an out.

She would say as much, but then Vega clears her throat, moves away.

“Anyway. We’ll be laughing about this on the next karaoke night. I’ll make sure we get some Katy Perry in there.” She nods towards the screen. “Come on. Tell me about Bhim.”

*

**-01:44:23**

A soft gasp. Hands on hips. Apple red lower lip, even teeth biting down.

Akeela watches the precognitive vision for what must be the eighteenth time, feeling like a masochist. Ironically (fittingly?) it’s something that Vega said that makes it click, as she watches the blurry versions of them lean closer, and closer.

_Us being who we are._

_Me being who I am…_

Akeela looks at the screen. Pauses, rewinds, pauses again. Stares really, really hard.

And then she bolts out of the room, heels clattering against the tile. Vega and Dash only left a few minutes ago with all the Bhim intel; they should still be in the building. Sure enough, as she reaches the balcony that encircles the upper floor of headquarters, she catches a glimpse of them near the exit, sharing a last word with Blake. Thank god.

“Vega! Vega, wait!”

She bolts down the stairs, not caring how police officers and civilians alike stare at her. She hikes up her skirt a bit to make the steps go faster, and also doesn’t care about anyone’s reaction to that. Except maybe Vega’s, who she can see staring at her thighs.

“Forget Century Stylez,” she says, only slightly out of breath. She tugs Vega outside, where there are less eyes and ears, and Dash and Blake follow suit. “You’re going to Triton Mall, fourth or fifth floor. Whatever store faces the Beyoncé Memorial.”

Vega, bless her soul, doesn’t argue. 

“Okay,” she says slowly. “What did you find?”

Akeela takes a deep breath, then another.

“Okay. Three—damn, no, four things. One: I was so busy trying to find clues in the area and the surroundings and the room we were in, that I didn’t look in the most obvious place: right at us.” She brings up a mini version of Dash’s vision on her wrist-tab, quickly changes the settings so the screen can’t be seen from behind. “Look at this. Yeah, we’re wearing the same clothes, but not everything is the same. I’m wearing my date lipstick.”

“Date lipstick?” Dash says the two words like they make no sense together, like ‘carrot vasectomy’. Akeela tries to be patient as she explains.

“My favourite everyday shade is ‘Passion Pink Panda’, from a small company that went bankrupt in the forties. But for dates, I like to wear this shade—” She taps the screen. “—from Lips in Sync. You can take a hose to the face wearing that stuff and come out drenched, but with perfect lips. So I like to wear it for, you know.” She feels herself getting faintly pink. “Making out.”

Blake furrows his brows. “Akeela, as fascinating as this look at your makeup routine is, I fail to see the…”

“Shush.” Vega is looking at her intently, picking up the thread. “She’s trying to say that us being where we are in the pre-vision isn’t a coincidence.”

“Exactly!” Akeela jabs a finger for emphasis. “At some point today, something was gonna happen, and I was going to ask you out, and I expected us to get down to business of the kissing kind. So I’m thinking I’d have chosen the venue too. Which brings me to two: war paint.”

She takes a moment to zoom in on her face. 

“The nano-paint I usually wear won’t distort my features in a live feed, only in recorded videos.” A small concession to make, working for the cops. “I’m not wearing my usual nano-paint in this. You can tell by the shimmer. Why would I change it?” She barrels on, not waiting for an answer. “Older surveillance equipment sometimes still has protocols that mark anti-facial recognition software as illegal, rather than frowned upon. If I knew I was going to a place with older equipment, I’d have swapped paint to save myself the hassle and alarms.”

“And I’m guessing Triton Mall is one of those places that hasn’t updated their cameras in years,” Dash says, nodding slowly.

“Smart kid, knew I liked you for a reason.”

“But,” Blake puts in, not entirely convinced, “there’s got to be more than one place in the city with those old cameras.”

“You’re right. But only _one_ where I’d take someone on a date.” She takes a moment to glance at Vega. Those intense eyes are all for her. “My cousin’s got an old-timey music store on the sixth floor of Triton Mall. I’ve never been, but he’s told me that I’m welcome to come. Says the back room has a great view of the Memorial.”

Vega reaches across to tap on the screen, fit the video to size. 

“It’s hard to tell but… that could definitely be the back room of a music store.”

Now Blake is nodding too.

“Okay, okay… I see where you’re going.”

“And I’m not done yet.” She zooms in again, this time on the window. “Three: drawn blinds. Super annoying. But I’ve watched this enough times to have it memorises, and I don’t think this is a trick of the light. Look at that crack in the blinds.” She sets the video to play, and they all crowd around her, watching. By now, she knows exactly when the little red dot will appear, and then just as quickly disappear.

“Sniper,” Vega says, voice low. 

“Or someone entertaining a cat from really far away. And watch this.” Akeela sets the speed to 0.25, plays it again. That slowly, when the red dot disappears, there’s a faint trail to be seen, leading distinctly down.

Dash snaps his fingers.

“Fifth floor!”

“Or fourth,” Akeela admits. “Or third. No way to be sure. But it’s a start.”

Blake rocks back and forth on his heels, nodding approvingly. “Akeela, you’re a life-saver. Hopefully literally. I’ll call the tac-teams, get at least one of them diverted.” He jerks his head at Vega. “Get going detective.”

But Vega stays still. She’s got a look of laser-point consideration, and it’s trained wholly on Akeela. Akeela’s seen it before of course; when she’s recreating crime scenes, questioning a suspect, chasing down the lead that could be the closer for the case she’s working. A look of quiet, intense focus, and it’s tinged with emotion.

“In a sec. Akeela, you said there were four things.”

“Yeah.” Another deep breath, and she shuffles closer. Vega seems unfazed, but for one second, her gaze does flicker. Nerves? Butterflies? Impatience? She’ll never know unless she pushes through. “You were right, about what you said before. That future, us in the back of my cousin’s shop… that’s never happening. The way things played out, it can’t. And I’m okay with that.

“But whether we know what happens or not, we still create our own futures. In this moment, right now, I still want to do this, just like future me wanted to. And I think you do too.”

A bitten lip. Akeela’s hand, reaching for Vega’s hip. Someone gasps.

Even after becoming intimately familiar with their kiss on the screen, the first bit of contact in real life is a thrill. Every single thing in the universe grows miniscule, and Vega, for those precious moments, is her new sun: bright, blinding, a solid warmth. Head slanting, she sinks into the kiss; no breadcrumbs, no string, just allowing herself to get lost as Vega kisses her thoroughly. They wrap their arms around each other; neck-cupping, hip-touching. Akeela lets one of her hands drift below Vega’s waist, and yep. _Great_ ass.

They pull away, and Akeela immediately misses the contact. She leans back in for a quick one, feather light against the detective’s cheek, and then takes a step back. The world comes into focus again. Dash is blushing and Blake is giving her a discreet thumbs-up.

“So… yeah. Four.” She waves a hand. “Go on, go do the saving the day thing that you always do. You’ve got more than an hour. I’ll be here when you get back.”

Vega blinks at her; once, twice. It’s a little gratifying, to have caught her off guard, and Akeela relishes it because she knows it won’t last long. And indeed, only a few seconds pass before she straightens, takes a step back as well, and thumbs the corner of her lip, where some of Akeela’s everyday lipstick has rubbed off.

“Yeah,” she says. “See you in a bit.”

And then she strides off towards her car, calm purpose in every limb.

*

**00:06:57**

Akeela picks up immediately, before the first note of Vega’s ringtone can sound out.

“We got him,” Vega says in lieu of hello. “Bhim was our victim, and it’s a good thing we looked into him as well. That publishing company he helps run? Turns out this morning he started contemplating some financial decisions that would have made profits pretty lean for his fellow partners. They organised the hit around midday, but we got him.”

Akeela sinks into her chair, knees suddenly gone boneless. She’s been in regular contact with Vega and Dash, helping them find the mall, the store, and then pinpointing places across the way that would make a good sniper’s nest. They’d had to go radio silent about fifteen minutes ago, and those were some of the longest minutes of Akeela’s life.

“Does it always feel like this?” Akeela wonders aloud, getting comfier in the leather seat. “I feel exhausted, like I’ve just run ten miles in heels.”

“When you’re this close to everything, yeah, sometimes. It can hit you hard.” There’s a beat, a moment of frictionless silence. When Vega speaks up again, her voice is quieter and softer. “You did good. Great, honestly. We couldn’t have done it without you. Everything you saw that I didn’t.”

She feels herself glowing a bit.

“Oh, well. You know. All in a day’s work, and all that jazz.”

“Nah, girl.” Vega’s voice is still softer than usual, and hearing it, remembering how soft her lips are too, makes Akeela feel all melty inside. “Seriously, you went above and beyond. I owe you one.”

“Come on. Not to brag, but I’ve got a lot up here between my ears, and I think it’s in my job description that I have to use it. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Actually…” And now there’s a downright drawl in Vega’s voice, and it’s all kinds of delicious. “I think I owe you a date.”

Akeela grins. In her mind’s eye, she waves a jaunty goodbye to that old future, knowing that she’s staring down the barrel of a whole new one. This time, there’ll be no clues to go on, nothing to work with but themselves. Akeela wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Well, I can’t argue with that.”


End file.
